There Are Four Futures Your Teen Could Have in 2035.
Their SAT Score May Signal Which One.
In 2035, your teen’s biggest thought partner at work won’t be their boss. It will be AI.
That single shift quietly reorganizes the labor market, not because AI replaces everyone overnight, but because it changes how people learn, improve, and get promoted.
For decades, professionals developed through repetition and mentorship. Junior lawyers read contracts. Junior analysts built models. Managers corrected drafts. Experience accumulated. Judgment compounded.
Now, first drafts increasingly come from AI. Middle management layers are thinning. Learning happens differently.
By 2035, your teenager will be 26–28 years old, settling into their career. Broadly speaking, four economic futures are emerging — or hybrids that combine elements of several:
Future 1 – The Strategic Knowledge Worker:
Strategic work in high-growth sectors solving ambiguous, high-stakes problems and earning excellent compensation. These will likely be college-educated professionals with a 4-year degree from a respected institution or a master’s degree.
Future 2 – The Entrepreneurs:
Implementing AI solutions in real businesses and building the 10–15 year economic bridge that will launch the next generation of AI-powered companies. Some of these professionals will come out of community colleges and universities, and others hybrid models.
Future 3 – The Economic Choice:
Skilled physical work with zero debt, strong wages, and stable demand. These are craftspeople who hone a practical trade.
Future 4 – Routine Knowledge Work:
Knowledge workers competing with AI for disappearing tasks — basic research, template analysis, standard contract review.
A 2025 NBC News poll found that 63% of Americans agreed that college is “not worth the cost” because graduates leave with debt and without specific job skills.
But the better question isn’t simply whether college is worth it.
It’s this: Will your teen be educated to use AI as leverage in their career — or compete against it?
The Debate: What’s Actually Happening
Two viral pieces about AI and jobs sparked intense debate this month.
AI technology entrepreneur Matt Shumer argued the apprenticeship ladder is disappearing: “I describe what I want, walk away for four hours, come back to finished work done better than I would have done it myself.”
His timeline: 1–5 years.
Jeremy Kahn, Fortune magazine’s AI Editor, responded that the thesis may be directionally right but overstates the speed. Regulated industries can’t tolerate high AI error rates. “AI is wonderful at being confidently wrong.”
Both arguments circle the same truth but skirt the structural shifts — two compressions are happening simultaneously.
Experience is compressing. For decades, professionals learned through repetition. Junior lawyers read hundreds of contracts. Junior consultants built model after model. If AI now performs the first draft, those reps shrink.
Mentorship is compressing. The traditional structure — Junior → Manager → Senior — is thinning. Increasingly, it looks like Junior + AI → Senior oversight. The middle layer is smaller.
This means your teen’s primary thought partner at work won’t be their boss. It will be AI. This shift changes which skills matter in the Age of AI.
This means your teen’s primary thought partner at work won’t be their boss. It will be AI.
AI Doesn’t Level the Playing Field. It Amplifies Differences.
There’s a comforting narrative that AI and AI tutoring will democratize intelligence.
But AI is a force multiplier. And force multipliers amplify differences.
The high-literacy student asks precise questions and evaluates whether answers are complete. The low-literacy student asks surface-level questions and struggles to verify accuracy.
Same AI. Different outcomes.
The dividing line isn’t technical skill. It’s literacy — the ability to read dense material, reason independently, and evaluate claims critically. And that increasingly determines which futures are accessible.
The Four Futures
Many careers will blend elements across these paths. But economically, four patterns are emerging.
Future 1: The Strategic Knowledge Worker
Strategic work in high-growth sectors requires very high literacy — people who can partner with AI and extract real value from it.
Infrastructure project finance. Robotics strategy. Biotech regulatory work. Data center M&A. Strategic communications. Policy analysis.
What these jobs require:
Reading dense material — bond offerings, research papers, regulatory filings
Evaluating complex trade-offs
Spotting flawed assumptions
Using AI to extend reasoning, not replace it
In this world, AI handles first drafts, and humans provide judgment. The more analytically confident and literate the human, the more valuable the partnership with AI.
Students who attend elite universities often graduate into networks that feed directly into this ecosystem. These institutions are better positioned to adapt to the AI economy — with deep endowments, research capacity, and concentrations of technical and strategic talent. That doesn’t guarantee outcomes. But it increases access to Future 1 opportunities.
Future 2: The Entrepreneurs
This is where many will build significant wealth. Businesses need people who can:
Design AI workflows
Integrate tools into operations
Train teams
Ship practical solutions quickly
Anthropic recently partnered with California community and state colleges to create AI implementation training programs — recognizing that the gap isn’t theory, it’s deployment.
Future 2 workers see real problems inside real businesses. They learn what companies will pay for. Many will become founders of AI-powered companies with practical experience, and little or no college debt.
Literacy helps here — particularly in seeing systems and patterns — but applied execution is central.
Future 3: The Economic Choice
This isn’t a fallback. It’s rational economics.
Labor shortages are driving wages up
College debt is zero or minimal
Complex physical work is expensive to automate
Specialized welding. Precision machining. HVAC systems for data centers. Electrical infrastructure. Biotech lab operations.
The learning pathway is apprenticeship-based and hands-on. Reading is necessary but less central than in Future 1.
For many families, this is a financially sound strategy.
Future 4: Routine Knowledge Work
This is the vulnerable tier: template analysis, basic research summaries, standard contract review, repeatable reporting.
AI increasingly performs these tasks at comparable or better quality. The risk isn’t instant disappearance — it’s gradual displacement and pressure on pay.
Why Your SAT Score May Signal Which Future Is Accessible
No single test determines a life trajectory. Standardized tests capture a narrow slice of cognitive ability.
But the SAT measures something that has real-world economic value in the age of AI: the ability to navigate dense, unfamiliar text under time pressure and extract clear conclusions. This skill becomes increasingly important as AI replaces some layers of middle management and professionals rely more on an AI thought partner than on a boss to perform at a high level.
Lower score bands often correlate with difficulty sustaining attention through complex material and spotting subtle logical gaps.
Higher score bands tend to correlate with comfort navigating technical passages, extracting nuanced arguments, and evaluating whether evidence supports claims.
This distinction matters more in an economy shaped by AI — because AI communicates through text.
Consider two analysts using the same AI tool.
One asks:
“Analyze this company.”
The other asks:
“The CFO attributes margin expansion to operational efficiency, but accounts payable increased from 45 to 62 days while inventory turnover remained flat. What data would distinguish genuine efficiency from payment deferral? Compare to peers.”
Same AI. Completely different leverage.
The difference isn’t coding ability. It’s reading-based reasoning. Higher score bands often suggest readiness to learn independently through reading, reason without constant guidance, and evaluate AI output critically. Lower score bands may indicate that Future 2 or Future 3 is a more natural pathway.
When your thought partner is an AI rather than a human boss, literacy becomes foundational.
Three Common Pushbacks
“My teen learns better from YouTube.”
Video is powerful for exposure and demonstration. But complex evaluation requires holding arguments in working memory, comparing sections, and revisiting assumptions — tasks better supported by text.
For high-stakes strategic work, deep reading remains essential.
“Can’t AI just explain things at their level?”
AI explanations increase access to information. They do not automatically build analytical depth.
Students who ask shallow questions receive shallow answers. Students who interrogate assumptions build layered understanding.
AI scales thinking. It does not replace it. This is the biggest risk of AI tutoring.
“Not all jobs require this level of literacy.”
Correct.
Future 1 requires it intensely.
Future 2 benefits from it.
Future 3 doesn’t require it at the same level.
The point isn’t that every teen must pursue strategic knowledge work. It may not even be more lucrative. There are no guarantees. The point is that literacy increasingly determines which future remains accessible.
Which Future Do You Want for Your Teen?
If literacy determines leverage in an AI-shaped economy, the real question becomes:
Is your teen regularly reading material slightly above their comfort level?
Are they writing strong arguments under time pressure?
Are they learning to question AI output rather than accept it?
Are they building domain knowledge independently?
These habits compound. That’s the real signal. Reading-based thinking remains the foundation of high-level problem-solving.
Which future do you want your teen to access?
See collegecopilot.me for resources and articles on college admissions.
Very helpful Sofia- thank you!
Thank you for this post. I love that you’re asking these questions. They’re important as our children start deciding the kind of future they want.